my crazy mod idea for A10, what do you think?

I went to an airshow recently that was hosted at a airbase for a reserve A10 unit so natrually there were lots of them, and their pilots around.

The A10's 30mm GAU cannon is its most lethal assett IMO in the right hands anyway.
I'm by no means any expert but it seems like the A10 has one weakness, actually its not really even a weakness but rather a limitation in that its limited by its ammo capacity which I is roughly 1200-1300 rounds if I i'm not mistaken.

Now the A10 can carry like 15000lbs on its pylons from what I understand. So here' s my idea. Don't load any bombs or missiles, well maybe like 1 AIM9 and some countermeasures out the wings and that would take what like 2-3000lbs max?

Now there should be 12,000 lbs left. I propose designing a massive ammo drum if you will that could mount on the belly somehow so it could carry like 3000-4000 additional rounds:

Anyone know what the GAU 8 weighs? My real crazy idea would be to mount another GAU-8 in a pod or something underneath for twice the punch



[edit on 27-6-2006 by warpboost]

Thats a sweet ass idea dude !!!
but, if you think about it, what good is all that ammo gonna do ?
The rate of that cannon is amazing, you would emtpy your supply in like
a few minutes. right ?

PS: the a10 is my favorite aircraft. Mostly because its the last of the up close and
personal. Anything after it is like....drop a laser guided bomb from 20,000 feet and
go home !!!

Warpboost
The ammo drum idea might be feasible, if A10 has a centerline hardpoint?
But 2 Gau-8 is a no no, recoil would be too much for the frame.

But anyway 1200 rounds of 30mm is more than enough, and it's not very practical weapon against anything but armor and using it means you have to dive into the range of AAA.

i'd rather see 30mm RADEN mounted on a rotary underbelly turret in a AC-130 type airframe for support, no ammo limitations there

Warpboost,

Having had this argument out already, I will only say that the A-10 is not the airframe you want to do CAS and NTISR missions with when you can achieve the same _weight_ of fire with guided rockets and SDB from much higher above the trashfire envelope.

That said, there is one other issue which is not to be ignored-

www.cursor.org...

DU becomes an oxide dust when it strikes with 'weapons grade' kinetic force and this often causes it to flash thanks to it's naturally pyrophoric properties. Once this happens; the material is almost certain to enter the air, dirt and water in ways that we are 'not yet fully cognizant of any deleterious health effects' on. But which Euro and Russian studies going as far back as PGW-II suggest included Liver and Pancreatic cancers as well as a host of related auto-immune problems.

Doubling the kg weight of contributory materials by upping the number of PGU-14 API fired per second is thus extremely unwise, especially at the distances for which Mk.1 Ball acquisition of human and light vehicle targets would suggest an HEI using 'just the one motor' is more than sufficient to gain assured lethality in _very_ small total round counts per target (i.e. Neither by rate nor by ammo load are you improving matters and even if you were, a GPU-5 slung on the inboard wingstations would be wiser for rototilling).


KPl.

As a side note, a few years ago I heard about lazer guided amunition for the A-10s gun. Each round could stear it's self towards the target like a mini JDAM. The problem was the cost of the ammo sky rocketed.

Does anyone know any more about this project?

Sounds like a waste of money...
The current ammo is accurate enough and high velocity cannonrounds tend to be hardo steer. And who's going to do the targetting for all those 30mm rounds?

Minihellfires loaded in 2.75inch rocket pods would be much more effective...

northwolf, I think the A10 has a centerline hard point, but even if it doesnt I would think you could make the ammo drum span two pylons which might be better anyway.

What would all that ammo do? It would allow 1 A10 to provide CAS with its cannon for 3-5 times longer than one without all the extra ammo. I would think in a flight of 2 even if only one had that extra ammo and no other ordinance it would still be like having 3 or 4 A10s worth of ammo in the sky and his wingman could do something like carry a half load of ammo in case of emergency and then that aircraft could haul more bombs.

imbalanced, the GAu 8s cyclic rate is 3900rpm so say you like 4500 rounds thats just over a minute worth of shooting time


Ok scrap the extra GAU idea, but what about an extended ammo drum, countermeasures, maybe 1 or 2 AIM9s and then mount like 2 or 4 50 cals on the wings for antipersonel work?

[edit on 27-6-2006 by warpboost]

damn cool idea. a-10s kick ass.

is there anyway to suggest this to someone in the airforce instead of just discussing it here and it coming to nothing?

justin

Originally posted by Nacnud
Does anyone know any more about this project?

I believe that a project like this using Tracers was developed. It was put into testing but utterly failed-know why? Differences within the ballistics of the Tracers and the Normal rounds rendered the advantages of the tracers useless. Which is bad.

Otherwise I think that 1200-1300 rounds in an A-10 is just fine. Compared to a lot of other aircraft that's quite a bit of ammunition. However, for certain missions an ammo drum might be good, but the placement of it would be problematic unless you had a second gun right beside it. If you were to place it at the front catastrophe could result as it could very well play havoc with the COG of the aircraft. Which as we all know is bad.

on a side note. on a standard a-10 mission what weapons do they carry?

justin

Originally posted by justin_barton3


is there anyway to suggest this to someone in the airforce instead of just discussing it here and it coming to nothing?

justin

Well after reading your post I called a tactical fighter wing that flys A10s and spoke with a recruiter. He gave me the # of a SSgt fabrication specialist in the A10 wing so hopefully I can tell him about it

Originally posted by warpboost
Well after reading your post I called a tactical fighter wing that flys A10s and spoke with a recruiter. He gave me the # of a SSgt fabrication specialist in the A10 wing so hopefully I can tell him about it

cool

hope it happens now.

justin

[edit on 27-6-2006 by justin_barton3]

I think the A-10 is generally outmoded and auxillery to needs. Removing the gatling gun and increasing the missile count would be a better move - a "clean" A-10 is sluggish enough without adding the FULL external load of extra ammo.

[edit on 27-6-2006 by planeman]

Also I think adding lots of weight in the form of ammo right in the nose of the craft might be disasterous for handling as it would make things a whole lot heavier in the front.

Originally posted by Amur Tiger
Also I think adding lots of weight in the form of ammo right in the nose of the craft might be disasterous for handling as it would make things a whole lot heavier in the front.

The way I envision doing it there would be no more weight than a bomb attached to the pylon. THe actual ammo store and weight mass could sit under a pylon and then have a slickl designed feed system that goes up to the cannon itself

Ok, here's an important issue for your idea. It's called "Ground Clearance." Have you SEEN the size of the ammo drum that's currently installed in the A-10?? It's HUGE! There's no WAY you could put an additional 1200 rounds on a belly mounted pylon, and have it off the ground enough for the plane to taxi, take off and land with no problems. Not to mention the weight would almost definately end up being insane, and the hardpoint pylons aren't stressed for that kind of load.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Ok, here's an important issue for your idea. It's called "Ground Clearance." Have you SEEN the size of the ammo drum that's currently installed in the A-10?? It's HUGE! There's no WAY you could put an additional 1200 rounds on a belly mounted pylon, and have it off the ground enough for the plane to taxi, take off and land with no problems. Not to mention the weight would almost definately end up being insane, and the hardpoint pylons aren't stressed for that kind of load.

You'd use a spiral feed system like in typical gun pods, the F-35's one for example. I don't know whether you'd get a full 1200 rds in a single pod but you'd get alot. Mechanically I think the suggestion is feasible. And it would be awesome, I agree, but I don't think it'd be a particularly worthwhile investment.

You're getting into an issue of weight costs to benefits. Even with a spiral feed system, you're PROBABLY only going to be about 800 rounds with the size of the rounds. That's not a big enough bonus to try a system like this.

I'm not going to argue it's a worthwhile modification, but I'd guess you could easily get 1200 extra rounds distributed between say one centreline pod, two underwing pods and the feed chain between them. But if the feed chain goes internal, which it would have to for wing pods, it'd eat into internal fuel.

[edit on 27-6-2006 by planeman]

If the A10 had an easier to change Ammo "drum" installed, then why not equip forward infantry units with replacement drum/s to be carried on their Personel Carriers.
Therefore there would always be enough ammo for forward/tank busting sorties, and by quickly dropping down into a LZ the crew or infantry could rearm the A10 quickly. This would allow it to stay in the combat zone longer - therefore bypassing the need for more weight to be carried by the A10. - Just a thought...